by Dawn Edwards
'Cold?' he asked me.
'Not really,' I commented. 'Chilly, not cold. Why do you ask?'
I could tell he was a bit shy or embarrassed at the moment, not displaying his usual bravado. He shrugged his shoulders and looked to my chest. I wasn't wearing a proper bra, just a control-top tank top, with a built-in bra, that clearly wasn't really doing its job. I could see my nipples, hard and erect. I knew despite the low light the fading fire was providing, he could see me blushing. I moved my arm to cover my chest.
'Awww…' he moaned, flashing a playful smile. ‘I must have turned you on then.’
He nudged my arm aside and ran a finger over my tank top, rolling my nipple between his fingers.
I moved my arm away. 'You want to look?'
He turned onto his side and lowered himself to the ground farther, facing me. He raised his eyebrow. 'Among other things.'
I touched them in a playful manner. 'I just simply don't understand the fascination.' He stared at me with a goofy look and giddy smile on his face. I stopped touching and took another drink.
'Why did you stop? I was quite enjoying that show,' he said in a low seductive tone. He touched himself, needing to adjust.
'You enjoy watching?'
'I think that's evident,' he said rubbing his bulge. ‘I'd rather participate. But I'll take what I can get at this point.' He let out a sigh.
I took another few drinks, placed the near-empty bottle on the sand and lowered myself down to a lying position to match Drew, looking at him from on my side. 'Well, by all means, please participate.'
His eyes went wide. 'You messing with me?'
'No, but I'll understand if you don't want to,’ I said, instantly regretting the welcoming advance. I was never this bold, this forward, for fear of rejection.
Before I could rescind my invitation, his hand was on my face, gently stroking my check. 'Hush, with all that self-doubt. Cupcake, with me, never question yourself.' With a finger, he traced a path to my chest and leaned forward and placed a simple tender kiss on my check, where his finger had just been. He took one of my nipples between his thumb and index finger, rolling it around, before palming the breast to massage it.
Looking me straight in the eyes, he kissed me, soft, tender, sensual, but with urgency and need. I'd never, ever been kissed like that before.
'Lay back,' he instructed, and I obeyed and laid flat on my back. He hovered over me, staring at me, through me.
'What?' I whispered, feeling insecure.
He smiled, shaking his head. 'Just can't get enough of you, you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met, I just can’t describe this pull.' So he felt it too.
He leaned back down and kissed me again on the mouth, before going to my neck and hitting a spot just behind my ear. I produced a loud moan.
'Hmmm, what did I just find?' Drew teased. 'A secret spot?' He revisited the spot before moving down to my chest. Reaching down my tank top, he cupped my breast, freeing it from my shirt.
'Drew,' I admonished, poking my head up and looking around at the dark black desolate beach.
'No one is around, it's too dark,' he said in a low soothing voice before he started to kiss me again. ‘There are motion sensor lights in the yard, we’d see anyone approaching.’ Not that there was likely to be anyone.
'Just stay above the waist,' I moaned.
‘Is that just for you, or both?’ he asked as a needy whimper. ‘Because I'm perfectly fine with you exploring southern regions, on yourself or on me.' His tone was so confident, commanding and sexy as hell. It didn’t seem desperate.
As much as I wanted to grant us both access, I had to set boundaries, especially in public. 'Both...for now.' I moaned and let him kiss and fondle me.
His hand roamed all over me, he pulled my hips into him, grinding his hard erection up against me. When I started to reciprocate, he moaned into my mouth. ‘Yeah, baby, keep doing that.’
His breathing was getting heavier when he stopped abruptly, pulling his hand out of my shirt and scooting away. ‘Shit,’ I heard him whisper and saw from the dim light of the fire, he was adjusting himself.
I sat up, sorting out my clothing and running a hand through my hair. Looking around I saw a figure walking towards us from the house.
‘Jessa?’ Breton came walking down the yard, sounding a bit out of breath.
Drew was sitting close to me, too close, but any sudden movement while someone approached would have been a dead giveaway. Breton eyed the close distance between us.
‘Hiya,’ Drew said casually. ‘There’s beer in the cooler.’
Breton looked to the cooler and then back to me. ‘Thanks, but I need to talk to Jessa.’
‘Ok,’ I said. Breton nodded to the beach, down by the water.
I stood, giving Drew an apologetic look. ‘I’ll be back, sorry, I don’t know what this is about.’
‘It’s fine, go.’ He smiled up at me.
I walked towards the water, to where Breton stood in the dark and out of earshot of Drew.
‘Bret, what’s going on?’ I asked, looking at my Fitbit for the time. It was late on a Friday evening; I would have thought for sure he would be out at a bar with his friends.
‘I’ve found something…’ he said, not able to really look at me. I could tell he was mad when I looked up at him and knew exactly what he was talking about. I had been wondering how long it would take him to find out about the blackmail. Based on the anger in his eyes, he’d found the content. I had wanted to tell him so many times as I was pretty confident that he’d be able to take care of it, but my shame always held me back.
‘And?’
‘How could you be so stupid, Jessa?’ I looked up at him and wanted to crawl out of my skin and slide into the ocean to escape.
I let out a deep breath and turned my back to him, looking out at the dark ocean.
‘So, I take it these videos aren’t news to you then?’ He was now nearly yelling at me.
I couldn’t answer him, I had no words. But what could I say? I was beyond mortified.
He grabbed my arm and spun me around. ‘Jessa, you don’t get to go silent. Why the hell would you do that?’
I pulled my arm free and pushed his chest to give myself some space. ‘You think I’m actually that stupid?’ I yelled back at him. ‘Really?’
I raked my fingers through my hair. ‘Fuck!’ I yelled.
‘But you knew about them.’
‘Yes, I knew about them,’ I sighed. ‘Why do you think I had no choice but to stay with the bastard all this time?’
It was dark, but I saw the pain in his eyes. ‘You had a choice…’
‘No, Breton, I didn’t,’ I sobbed, the tears finally appearing. ‘He held that thing over my head like a loaded gun, threatening to send them to Dad or the media…’
Breton reached out to me, taking me in his arms, trying to console me. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
I laughed through my tears. ‘As if I wanted you to see that…’ and then it hit me, I pushed out of his arms again. ‘Oh God, tell me you didn’t watch it?’
I felt ill, turning around, not able to look at him again. I’d seen the video, it wasn’t my finest moment. He had positioned a Go-Pro by the full-length mirror in his bedroom during one of our first times, so it looked like I knew about the camera, but really, he kept telling me to look at ourselves. He told me he was trying to make it sexy and erotic, get me more into it.
It was after that, that I really started to see his true colors. When I told him that perhaps we should take a break or slow things down. He said no, that he couldn’t live without me, and that if I even thought about calling it off, he would blast the video publicly. He showed it to me, and ever since, I’d basically had very little say in our relationship. He held all the power with that one video clip.
‘The first one it took me a few seconds, but once I figured out what it was, I stopped it immediately.’
I looked up to him, eyes wide. Did he just say what
I thought he did?
‘What do you mean, the first one?’ He took a deep breath. ‘Breton, is there more than one?’
He nodded. ‘I found three.’
‘Fuck…’ I started to hit my head with my hands. ‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.’
I was frantic, not able to keep still, Breton had to take hold of me. ‘That fucker…’ I spit out. ‘So basically, every time we had sex, he recorded us.’
‘Jessa, take a few deep breaths and calm down,’ Breton tried to soothe me. ‘Getting worked up isn’t going to help anything.’
I did as he said, concentrated on my breathing, still not able to believe what was my life. I remembered how completely destroyed I had felt when he first showed me the video. He was smug, and he knew there was no way I would ever leave him.
‘What did you do with them?’ I asked him a few minutes later when I thought my breathing had returned to somewhat normal.
‘I corrupted the files so that no one would be able to open them outside the original computer they are housed on right now,’ he told me in a low calm voice. ‘I’m also running checks to see if they are housed anywhere else, but I looked to see if they had been exported, and so far, they haven’t been. I’ll also be alerted if he tries to email it or export it.’
I let out a deep breath I didn’t know I was holding. ‘Thank you.’ I cried.
He took my hand. ‘You should know I’d do anything for you. Why didn’t you tell me about these? I could have easily deleted them.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Because I was so embarrassed, and the last thing I ever wanted was for you to see me like that?’
He looked down at me. ‘I’d rather see you like that for a moment to delete it, than to see you live a life in misery, being blackmailed.’
I hugged him tightly, knowing he had my back.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the dim glow of the fire. Drew was still there, but with the waves, the wind and the distance, I was pretty sure he hadn’t heard any of our conversations. ‘Can I ask another favor?’
‘Anything,’ Breton assured me as I pulled away.
‘Can you not tell this to anyone?’
‘That goes without saying.’
‘And can you make up some excuse to tell Drew…I can’t go back and face him right now,’ I prompted.
‘Like?’ He was dumbfounded, knowing he was shit at lying and making things up on the spot.
I shrugged. ‘Tell him that…oh, I don’t know…’ I thought about it for a moment. ‘That you found out you had herpes and needed to vent.’
He laughed, and so did I. I needed to make him smile, as the pained look on his face I’d seen tonight was eating away at me.
‘Well, I’m not telling him that…’ he smiled. ‘I’ll just tell him I found out some bad news.’
‘He will think it’s about me or you and will worry,’ I told him, wanting to protect him, needing to keep Drew on my side.
Breton nodded at me. ‘I’ll tell him that one of our pilots got pulled over for a DUI.’
I looked up to Breton, and he nodded. Shit, this wasn’t going to be good if the media got a hold of it.
Breton walked me back to the property line, taking a beer from the cooler and sitting down across from Drew as I walked on by without a word. I felt Drew’s eyes on me, but he didn’t say a thing—and neither did I.
Our night had been ruined. I wanted to hold on to the memory of his hands roaming over my body and his lips on mine. I was no longer aroused, but I would keep the memory of it for another time.
Chapter 15
JESSA
THE OFFICIAL START TO SUMMER would all kick off this weekend with the Memorial Day long weekend. The usual crowd was pretty much already on the Cape and Islands, getting their homes ready for the summer. Many of the same families going back generations.
Each year there were always new additions to the ‘summering’ crowd. New money and transfers from different communities: Newport, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Block Island, the Jersey Shore or some other east coast hotspot. But they were just the same type of people; people I had no interest in. People who were boring, dull, fake and full of themselves.
My parents were hosting a small reception Sunday afternoon with their closest friends out here to ring in the Memorial Day weekend. In addition, there was also the large official welcome party at the Golf and Country Club, a few brunches, and lots of local clubs had special DJs for the weekend.
Various families took turns hosting each year. As we were decidedly absent last year, at my mother's request, the honor was given to us, in addition to the large Fourth of July party for family, friends and business associates and staff of my father.
I hadn’t been looking forward to it at all. Matt was keeping me so on edge, that the thought of being around people made me more and more anxious every day. The other night I had needed copious amounts of alcohol before I could work up the courage to meet Matt for dinner in a public place. Thankfully, there hadn’t been any mention of me going back to the condo. Because there was no amount of alcohol that could get me to do that willingly. As it was, I almost cried on the way home when he rested his hand on my knee, something he’d done in the early days of our relationship, and something I’d noticed he only did when he was in a happy mood and in total control of the situation, namely me.
But thankfully, it seemed as though his piece on the side hadn’t kicked him to the curb yet, I just couldn’t deal with the physical advances. I knew I was engaged to him, but every time I was with him, I felt like I was betraying Drew, and that was one of the worst feelings I’d ever had. I watched the time on my phone, counting down the minutes till I could see the sexy man I knew would be waiting for me at my parents’ house again. I always felt safe with him.
I really needed to think of more excuses not to sleep with my fiancé, even I could appreciate how bizarre it sounded, but I needed a plan to prevent having sex, or even getting close to making out with him from happening ever again.
Whenever I needed to spend time with Matt, I put on my best game face and used our wedding as an excuse for being distracted and upset. It was a believable story, and now I knew it would be one I would stick with to save face with him and the rest of my friends and family for the foreseeable future—or until Breton got the information we needed and I could get away from Matt once and for all. I had more than enough reason to be upset, the videos that I was forbidden to ever speak of, that being pissed off about the blackmail had been my pre-programmed mood. But he got tired of that real quick and used the tapes to get me to act as if nothing was wrong—so now, my internal mood was blacker than ever, but I had a game face of steel.
The summer season was essentially now in full swing. My work, social and school commitments were keeping me very busy. It was the exact distraction I needed to stay as far away from Matt as I could. I was grateful he too was busy and not making too much of a fuss at our limited interactions. He’d only been out to the Cape once since I’d moved out here for the summer, and that was just for a quick family dinner and he left early the next morning.
I was still in contact with him, basically every day via phone and text message. I had dinner with him when I was in the city for school and work, and that was it, but even that limited interaction was proving too much. I hated him, hated seeing him, and, as I needed to drive, I couldn’t even drink to calm my nerves.
The wedding plans were getting more in-depth, and the money my mother was paying was making me feel guilty. I was glad this was only a minor dent in their bank account, not their life savings as so many families put down for their children's weddings.
If I wasn’t pretending to be fussing over centerpieces, or the right lily, or the size of the vase, I was pretending to fuss over what size and design of a bouquet I wanted.
I wasn’t into it, but it wasn’t as if I could call it off at the moment without a reason. I basically just agreed with whatever my mother and wedding planner wanted. When I met with Matt, I fill
ed him in on all the plans and what I’d been up to. Anything to keep the conversation flowing and his hands off me—which thankfully hadn’t been too much of an issue. But I had a feeling that he was getting suspicious, which was why I needed to stick with excuses, and why I was so on edge.
My father had shown me the prenuptial agreement he had drawn up. I basically agreed with it and put my signature to it, knowing full well there would be no wedding and thus no need for it.
I just really wished Breton would hurry up and get all the info needed so I could just move on with my life.
I knew he was trying, he told me last week he was trying to track down the supplier of passports they used, and where the rest of his family were now and if they were a part of all of this. After they left Boston for Canada, their trail went cold other than the information Breton found about the mother’s death a few years after his father was tossed from the company, and his father’s death a few years ago. That’s why he wanted a lead for the passport, so at least there would be something to work with.
It seemed that every day I arrived back to the house after being away all day either volunteering, working or at class, Breton and Drew had something new to show for their day’s work.
‘Looking good, boys,’ I called as I walked by into the house one day after volunteering with Amber.
‘Yeah, I try,’ Drew flirted with me openly with Breton standing feet away from him. He had been doing it more and more recently. It was innocent, and he did it in a fun way that would make people think he was just being playful. I smiled and rolled my eyes at him, I knew what the real deal was. I knew Breton was suspicious, but he hadn’t said anything to me yet. In fact, he hadn’t said much to me since the night last week on the beach when he had told me of all the videos Matt had on his laptop of me. That was another thing Breton was busy with; tracking down the server to make sure no other copies existed so he could erase it. Thankfully, it had only been uploaded to Matt’s cloud and one other server, and he told me he was getting close.